1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to crew station designs in combat, assault, and tactical vehicles, and, more particularly in manned armored-ground vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the increased tactical information available in network centric warfare, the increased use of armor for protection, and the limitations imposed on vehicle size by transportation requirements, there is a need for crew-shared displays and a means for operating the same in vehicle crew stations. This is true for crew-manned helicopters, tactical command and control centers, as well as combat, assault, and tactical vehicles, and particularly future armored-ground vehicles, all having side-by-side crew configurations. In these vehicles, the timely use of the increased tactical information is dependent upon relatively-large, high resolution video displays for the maintenance of situational awareness. When entrance and exit hatches and other ports open to the exterior are secured, armored vehicles maneuver with on-board indirect-vision systems providing driving scenes on video-displays located in the crew station. These vehicle designs require relatively large area, high resolution video displays to function effectively; however, the requirement for rapid deployment by tactical aircraft restricts vehicle size. This is true for a helicopter with a pilot and co-pilot sitting side-by side sharing displays and controls, a control center for an autonomous unmanned tactical aircraft or ground vehicle with an operator and asset manager sharing displays and controls, and an armored ground-vehicle with a multi-person crew.
In particular, prototype designs of future manned armored-ground vehicles have a common crew station with two crewmembers, driver and commander, sitting side-by-side who operate the vehicle from video, auditory, and tactile information displays and hand, foot, and voice-operated controls. The video displays are mounted across the panel in front of the crew and are multifunctional showing the external driving scene, situational maps, and system status as selected by the user based on the role and permissions. One planning requirement for these military vehicles is that they are air transportable and in particular by the C-130, the United States Air Force's primary tactical transporter. This requirement limits the width to approximately 102 inches for a wheeled vehicle (approximately 100 inches for a tracked vehicle). This size restriction limits the display area afforded the crew and the information that can be presented at any one time. One consequence is that displays developed in prior engineering efforts for larger vehicles cannot be readily incorporated in these designs, therefore necessitating further software programming effort and time, and resulting ultimately in reduced standardization across vehicles and increased training needs.
The crew station displays intended for these vehicles are commonly standard thin-film transistor (TFT) Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) showing one display. The displays are manually-operated by touch screen buttons (i.e., switches), bezel switches that are mounted about the edges of the display, and panel contact switches. In addition, some designs may include hand controllers for operating the displays. Because of space limitations, and because reasonably sized displays are needed to maintain situational awareness, the displays in some crew station designs are limited to three displays across the viewing front of the crew compartment as well as two smaller wing displays, one on each side. With this crew station design, the center (i.e., middle) display is shared by both crewmembers. The result is a severe limitation in the information that can be displayed and, since the displays are configured based on the crewmember's role, competition between the crewmembers for use of the center display. A 19-inch diagonal display size is recommended by established researchers as being necessary for maintaining tactical situational awareness from the digital map displays. During indirect vision operations, the driver may need to see a full view of the driving scene as shown on the display to his front (via the center scene camera), and the center display and his wing display (via the left and right side cameras). That the commander is limited to his front and wing displays in this configuration severely limits his information access and furthermore may induce motion sickness from the driving scene on the center display.
For example, FIG. 1 is a top-view schematic of a two-person crew station 10 for a typical manned tactical vehicle operated with an indirect vision driving system. The crew station compartment 11 has two side-by-side seats 12, 13 facing forward with a discrete switch control panel 19 between them. The seats 12, 13 face an array of video display monitors 14-18 mounted to the immediate front of the seats 12, 13. The left seat 12 faces a left wing display monitor 14, a center display monitor 15, and the shared display monitor 16. The right seat 13 faces the shared display monitor 16, a center display monitor 17, and a right wing display monitor 18. In a typical configuration, the displays are in a portrait-orientation with a nominal arm-reach viewing distance. The wing-displays 14, 18 are rotated slightly inward so as to be normal to the viewing line of sight. The crewmembers operate the vehicle manually with hand and foot controls 21, 22, as well as with touch screen buttons and console switches (not shown), and speech through an automatic speech recognition system (not shown). Driving and tactical information are presented to the crew on the video display monitors 14-18 as well as audio and tactile displays. The video display monitors 14-18 are multifunctional showing the external driving scene, situational maps, and system status as selected by the crew based on their role and permissions. The video display monitors 14-18 are controlled by a video router (not shown) as part of a computer 23 with input of the immediate driving scene collected by video sensors 26 and the tactical position from a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor 24, a tactical database received from a digital radio 25, and the control inputs from the crew.
FIG. 2 is a schematic of the video processing for the video display monitors 14-18 of FIG. 1. In one configuration, the indirect video sensors 26 comprise an array of forward facing analog video cameras 32-34: a left side view camera 32, a central view camera 33, and a right side view camera 34. In some designs, the video cameras 32-34 have analog video format output to computer 23, and power input line 36 from the vehicle power unit 30 via a voltage distributor 31 per the horizontal-synch and vertical-synch control lines 35 from the computer 23. The video output line 37 is input to image processing boards (not shown) of computer 23 that provide video capture, real-image processing, graphic overlay, and display of the live video in a graphics display window on the displays of the crew station compartment 11. The graphic overlay supports real time mission planning and operations decision making as directed by the computer 23. The processing boards provide video routing of both the scene images and the multifunctional displays to the video display monitors 14-18 of FIG. 1. FIG. 2 shows the video output line 38 to the video display monitors 14-18. The video display monitors 14-18 can be manually operated by touch screen buttons (not shown) that are displayed with legends, as well as bezel and contact switches (not shown) mounted about the display housing. More particularly, FIG. 2 shows an output from the touch screens of the video display monitors 14-18 to the data line 39 of the computer 23.
Again with reference to FIG. 1, with this crew station 10, the middle display monitor 16 is shared by both crewmembers with the crewmembers viewing the same displayed information. The result is a severe limitation in the information that can be displayed and since the video display monitors 14-18 are configured based on the user's role, competition between the crewmembers for use of the middle display monitor 16 results. For example, during indirect vision operations with external vehicle-mounted cameras, one crewmember may have the responsibility for driving the vehicle from the outside video scene that is seen on the video display monitors 14-18, while the other crewmember may be performing command-level planning operations from the tactical map and system status displays for both their vehicle and controlled robotic elements. In some situations, such as navigating on a winding back country road, the driver in, for example, seat 12, may need to see a full view of the driving scene as shown on the center display monitor 15 to his front (via the central view camera 33), and his left wing display monitor 14 and the middle display monitor 16 (via the left and right side view cameras 32, 34). In this configuration, the commander (in seat 13) is limited to his center display monitor 17 and right wing display monitor 18; furthermore, the visual flow of the driving scene on the middle display monitor 16 may distract him from his task and lead to motion sickness since his view of the scene is in conflict with his body motion. This is because he is seeing the view from the right side view camera 34 that is pointing opposite to the direction that he is looking. This effect can be particularly disturbing when driving with stereoscopic vision where the indirect vision cameras 32-34 are each stereo camera pairs, with field-sequential video returns seen by the driver on his displays through, for example, wireless stereoscopic video liquid crystal shutter glasses. While the driver sees a stereoscopic image of the driving scene on the center display monitor 15, the commander sees the shifted sequenced images as a badly out-of focused scene. In another situation, such as driving down a straightway, the driver may need no more than the center display monitor 15 to his front (for the central view camera 33) freeing the middle display monitor 16 for use by the commander. However, in approaching a turn-off the driver may again need the middle display monitor 16 for an increased field-of-view with three contiguous video display monitors 14-16 thereby interrupting the commander in his tasks.
Accordingly, an improved display system and method of display, which is capable of being used by multiple vehicle crewmembers without limiting each crewmember's vision, range of motion, and abilities to properly conduct their respective tasks would be beneficial.